The Seattle City Council passed a resolution, sponsored by Councilmember Lisa Herbold (District 1 – West Seattle and South Park), declaring the Council’s intent to consider funding equitable wage increases for human services workers to address the city’s staffing crisis. The resolution also requests that other public and private funders also produce recommendations to collectively address wage equity before Council’s budget deliberations this fall.
“It is impossible to end our homelessness emergency without fully staffing and fairly paying human services work. These workers are on the streets every day helping people in their hour of greatest need. We rely on them to tackle the city’s biggest crises, from homelessness to hunger, childcare and elder care,” said Councilmember Herbold.
“This is a major step toward fair pay for the life-saving services they provide. Without doing so, our City’s Human Services Department (HSD) will fall further behind, competing to hire the same pool of workers as King County, but offering lower wages. If we expect Seattle to respond effectively to homelessness, we can’t tie the hands of HSD by funding only low wages,” she continued.
Workers on the frontlines addressing our region’s most urgent challenges, including homelessness, domestic violence, childcare, hunger, and elder care, are not paid fairly.
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